Other than rational thinking do you have proof that God does not exist? [YOU RESPOND]
Offline From: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 2:43 PM
Subject: [General Question] God
Jesus Only sent a message using the contact form at
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Hello to everyone that will read this, I am 19 years old and I have a
question for the Founders of the Rational Responds Squad, Sapient and all
others being Atheist which means you don't believe in any God,what proff
other than your rational thinking do you have to prove that God does not
exist?? And where do you get the information from which you say proves
that a God does not exist?? And why do you focuse so much on the Christian
Faith than any other Religion??? Because I heard Sapient I believe say that
he would not stop until the Religion of the Christian Faith was ended and
was no longer,so those are my questions and I hope to hear from you via
email or to speak with you via phone or with some other form of
communication.
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The problem here is the "burden of proof". If you claim to have an invisible friend named God, it's not really fair for me to have to prove that he doesn't exist. Proving that your invisible friend is somehow real is pretty much your problem.
As to why one would use rational thinking ... well, it has served us well so far, and often produces more beneficial results than being irrational.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
While this god of yours might seem real to you, it's about as real to us as Harry Potter is to you. It's your job to provide the evidence for what you percieve as real, if you want to convince us that it is. It's not our responsibility to provide proof that what you believe in isn't real. You're making the claim that it's real, you need to provide evidence of its reality.
The god you believe in is an object of personal belief, not of the real physical world. Personal beliefs can neither be proven, nor disproven. If they could, they wouldn't be beliefs. They would either be known facts to everyone, not just those who believe, or they wouldn't be facts at all.
Non-rational thinking proof of god's nonexistence? Hmm... How about "Because I say so?" I think that qualifies as non-rational thinking proof...
"What right have you to condemn a murderer if you assume him necessary to "God's plan"? What logic can command the return of stolen property, or the branding of a thief, if the Almighty decreed it?"
-- The Economic Tendency of Freethought
Think about this for just a second, ok? I have a two foot tall invisible gnome living in my refrigerator. At night, he sings songs that only brown hamsters in Vermont can hear, and tells them the winning lottery numbers for the Florida Lottery. The catch is, he only inhabits this dimension when nobody is looking for him.
Now, here is your task. Prove that my gnome doesn't exist.
Once you have conclusively proven that the gnome doesn't exist, I will prove your god doesn't exist, but not a second before.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
When your Christian God decides to stop hiding behind the flimsy "faith without sight" excuse and actually provides irrefutable, incontrovertible, unambiguous, undeniable evidence as to his existence then I will believe.
If God is omniscient and knows the mind of man, then God knows exactly the nature and degree of proof that would be sufficient to back an atheist into an inescapable corner so that the formerly doubting skeptic would be absolutely astounded by the evidence and would be left with no alternative but to humbly acknowledge God's existence.
So far such profound examples have failed to appear. .....I predict none are forthcoming.
Prove Allah, Zeus and Thor don't exist and we'll talk.
Otherwise STFU & GBTW
I don't have scientific proof God exists- but I do have pictures of a demonic entity. My daughter and I were attacked
for two years. We experienced being woke up and then held down
unable to move or scream, unexplained bruises, my daughters hand was cut in front of me drawing blood. A picture was taken
the night of one attack by another person. In the picture are dozens of transparent circles commonly known as "orbs". Enlarging some of them revealed faces. One in particular is very evident of what it is- it has a distorted face with horns. I challenge anyone to debunk my pictures if interested. I was not a believer before but have been shown in so many ways that God does exist, and what's even more frightening is that demons do exist also. It makes me sad to see all of the misinformed people out there that don't believe there is another realm. We only experienced a small taste of what hell is. To believe the Bible- that is where non believers are going. Satan is alive and well and would love nothing more than for people to believe he doesn't exist- fooling many and taking them right with him in the last days.
Sweet. Can we see?
Okay, show us the orb faces.
Can we start with orb faces, please? One thing at a time. Other realms, hell, satan, and whatever else can wait until you have pictures of them. K, now make with the orb faces.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
A very interseting story,though hardly uncommon.I have heard and read about many similiar things from christians. I have never known any to aledge pictures though. Provide these pictures and I'm sure the people here will be interested in discussing them.Or more likely reveal how they were photoshopped
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
How do you know I cant fart a Lamborginni out of my butt since you've never seen me do it?
This argument has been beat to death.
If merely uttering a claim constituted reality then Thor would make lighting and Newton's experiments with Alchemy would be valid.
See if you can spot the pattern:
"Allah is real, now prove he isn't"
"God is real, now prove he isn't"
"Vishnu is real, now prove he isn't"
"Isis is real, now prove she isn't"
People do now and once did, just as in polytheistic times, believed their mere claims to be true as fervently as you buy your current claim. The point of making that pattern above is to demonstrate the fallacy of "prove that it doesn't". Because if that were the case, by YOUR model of thinking, one would have to hold all those beliefs to be equally true. Since you don't hold those to be equal, you show the fallacy of your own use of logic.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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Please do post your photos. If they are indeed proof that there is a god, then I would have to question why god allows these orb thingies to harass helpless people. I don't think we are misinformed just because we have never been gang raped by demons. It just means that we haven't had the "good fortune" to see such an event. I've seen orb photos before and I've seen the face of satan in smoke pouring from the twin towers on 9/11. Events similiar to this are often claimed by alien abductee as well.
If the bible is true then god gave man no true chance. We were supposedly born with a propensity to choose sin, satan and demons were intentionally sent to Earth to confuse, test and in your case gang rape us. I won't even touch the story of Job and the hardening of the pharoah's heart. If the god you believe in exists, I cannot morally follow it. To me what is scary is that so many people claim these are the lasts days. If we treat these as the last days it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why worry about the peak in oil production when these are the last days? Who cares if we prepare for a huge shift in the climate because jesus is coming back? BTW I do not claim that global warming is manmade or even really happening, I just think we need to re-evaluate our impact on our environment. The point is whack jobs that insist the end is near need to calm down. These people have their fingers on the button and those of us who aren't ruled by irrational fear want to enjoy what time we have left. I apologize if I sound condescending, but I personally wouldn't want an episode like this to happen to me so I could believe.
This may be somewhat off-topic so I apologize. Demons will not harass you in hell, so don't worry. I am not mocking your experience, but If hell exists, they are supposed to be thrown in to suffer with sinners. The concept that satan and demons punish people in hell was probably started by the church so god wouldn't be blamed for punishing people. Dante is more responsible for the modern vision of hell than the bible.
"Always seek out the truth, but avoid at all costs those that claim to have found it" ANONYMOUS
Please don't take this the wrong way New Believer, I am trying to be polite, but this just sounds disturbing, and I shudder to think what might have happened to your daughter IF you are, in fact, wrong. Since you can't prove your belief as to how she was injured, people might take it the wrong way.
EDITED FOR TACTFULNESS 2/28/08
“It is true that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. It is equally true that in the land of the blind, the two-eyed man is an enemy of the state, the people, and domestic tranquility… and necessarily so. Someone has to rearrange the furniture.”
EDITED FOR TACTFULNESS 2/28/08
As biting as it was, it was also a slanderous personal attack. I have edited the above post to something more reasonable. I apologize to the board for my brashness.
“It is true that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. It is equally true that in the land of the blind, the two-eyed man is an enemy of the state, the people, and domestic tranquility… and necessarily so. Someone has to rearrange the furniture.”
We can't prove no god exists.
We also can't prove that we're not going to spontaneously transform into a variety of striped golfing-umbrellas tomorrow.
but the lack of proof for the nonexistence of a god is not a valid argument for a god belief.
It sounds to me that you experienced sleep paralysis which explains the feeling of been held down and maybe some of the things you "saw" eg hallucinated. The orbs that you say you saw was probably just dust on the lens of said camera.
Is this what your "orbs" looked like?
Chew on this for a minute:
If God is the supposed higher being that created, well, everything, then by definition, would it's workings and intentions be outside the scope of human understanding? Given that to be true, would that not make every religion ever conceived out to be nothing more than a collection of theories?
Atheism (in my case, at least) isn't so much about the rejection of some form of higher truth, or what have you. Instead, it's just the disqualification of baseless theories.
QED, sucka.
Sleep paralysis. I experience the same thing.
I agree, it is terrifying. I can even sympathize with you tying it to a spiritual experience. However...
...This is all self-manufactured evidence and dishonesty, created by you in order to try and project your convictions into the world with physical 'proof'. The ends justify the means, in your eyes, because you feel there actually is a danger.
Seek counselling. For your daughter especially.
After you recognize the condition for what it is, you'll be more prepared to cope with episodes. Your brain is still going to make them frightening - but at least you'll have the knowledge and rationale to prevent it from taking over your life (which it is clearly started to, if your at the 'manufacture what evidence I need to validate my claims' stage).
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
It is interesting to note that the horned devil is NOT a judeo christian concept, but rather a cynical attempt by the early church to 'demonize' the gods of the earlier competeing pagan religions. The horned man, Pan, Faunus, Cernunos et al represented the masculine principle to the ancients. The christians decried the old gods as 'demons and devils' and the image stuck.
However, judeo christianity describes its demons as fallen angels with Satan/Lucifer being the most beautiful and luminous.
Just as the original Santa Claus was just an old man in winter clothes, morphed (largely by Coca Cola advertisement) into the red suited fat man, the popular image of a horned devil is an invention overlain on the much more mundane original.
Flying saucers... Much the same is the image of the saucer (disk shaped) craft. This image entered the public perception due to a misprint of a UFO witness's statement. He said something to the effect that the things he saw moved 'like saucers skipping over a lake'. The objects he described were in fact wedge shaped.
But the notion of the flying 'saucer' stuck. You see it depicted all over to the point that it has become iconic.
In short, saying your imagery depicts this silly and demonstrably fabricated conception (the horned devil) makes me more than a little suspicious.
LC >;-}>
Christianity: A disgusting middle eastern blood cult, based in human sacrifice, with sacraments of cannibalism and vampirism, whose highest icon is of a near naked man hanging in torment from a device of torture.
Hello fellas. Let me say I found your site interesting. You are for the most part polite and very logical bright individuals and for that you should be proud. I want to point out one or two things. each member of the site has this real cool looking photo that shows confidence and intelligence and evokes...hmmm..."I'm right. 100%" Which means , you know the truth, and as one of the members said and I paraphrase"if you think you know the truth, you are wrong" or avoid people who think they know the truth, something like that. I just wanted to point that out. You guys have to admit this, you think you are 100% right here, you think there is no god and all this Christian mumbo jumbo is 100% crazy. Well, here is the onion as they would say. Prepare for a little chink in your armor. There are unexplainable things that occur on this earthly plain, that we find later to be explainable. its all dependent on where we are consciously. I too was among you. Logic ruled. it was my rock. Until I heard f a little man named Edgar cayce. Edgar you see was this powerful psychic. they called him the sleeping prophet. When he became hypnotized, in a trance, his conscious mind shut down and his unconscious mid active, well he kooked up to the Akashic record or the book of life. (bare with me here logical ones) . while he was hooked up to this devine source, he was able to recieve these truths of perfect knowledge from the source. As proof that what he received was accurate, thousands of people with afflictions were healed, blin, crippled and crazy people were ealed. in turn people lined up for 6 months to receive this knowledge. it is a very interesting story, one you all should become familiar with. tere are many biographies and book son the subject. well i read one of these books called "the edgar cayce companion by b. ernest fraje. This is a compilation of many of these readings from devine source that edgar gave. it was my logical rational mind that came to the conclusion that. this man could not have healed all these people , there was some devine information received. so believing the source was esoteric, i read all what this esoteric source had to say, which surprisingly backed up the "story" of jesus, and untop of this it filled in all the blanks about god, nature, souls, spirits, reincarnation, earth, satan, that my little rational mind needed. i basically found all the rational proof i needed.
I then asked god for forgiveness and have been walking "the way" every since. The way BTW is very simple. "just be good, do no evil to another" And be truthful. because god is love. Now here is the other onion, if god exist and he is love, ergo satan exist and he is hate. I learned that this earthly plane is satans world, we are here ...well Ill let you read Cayce's work for that little nugget. we just need to make it through this plane still obeying those 3 simple rules. simple isnt it. well no member of this site even believes in god. thats one for satan. The world is at war, killing each other, we show hate towards our wifes, the guy on the street everyone. thats 2 for satan. if there is love and hate and we get to choose, why is there so much more hate? shouldnt it be at least 50-50? isnt love better? why even choose hate like so many do. and does it make sense that we are on a rock in space, perfect tempature for life. and NOTHING else around us makes sense. No other planets with life, nothing else happening. kind of like we are in a fish tank in a controlled enviornment.
Seems like there has to be something else besides being born and breathing for 72 years , if we make it that long, and then dissappearing into nowhere. There has got to be somthing missing, what do we not know? ask yourself mr. know it alls, what do ye not know? with all these questions. can you imagine what we do not know?
so keep the photos that show you know everything, but logically , we know THAT is not true. You being comfortable thinking you are in control and know everything, enough to TELL other people who dont know much, that they are wrong and you are right.
ask your self why half of you have never heard of Cayce. What else didnt you hear of. If noone knows what the hell the human race is doing out here in space, why do you profess to know so much. scientist have proven they are up to 10 dimensions.
unless you can tell me about the 4th and 5th, you better consider chilling out a bit with the holier than thou attitudes.
So having come from where you now sit. this is what i believe, i who have kept searching for the truth. and BTW truth is relative:
I believe everything in the edgar cayce readings is truth as it came from divine source. that means god.
by reading the edgar cayce companion, you will know all else i believe and why. sorry i have no photos of orbs, just a book you never read. from a man named edgar cayce you may never have heard of.
one last thing. if this is from devine source, why has most people never heard of it. during this debate of god or no god, satan has made sure it gets very little air time. you wont see this stuff on cnn.
anyway, good talking with you fine people. keep looking for him. the book will fill in all the blanks your wonderful minds need.
hey, have you guys noticed how the weather is getting worse and worse. ....earthquakes, floods, wars .lots of souls leaving the earthly plane....hmmm
do you guys believe in the ages? as in age of aquarius. Have you heard of the procession of the equinoxes. where the sun circles every 25,900 years. divide by 12 is 2100 years. what year is this? 2008. but why? man has been around for a lot longer i should say. hmmmmm. what does that mean? well the fact that we are tracking the last age, the age of pisceis, when Jesus was sent by god, to give all those rational reasons we need, well that cant be why its just 2008, that would mean , the people in power , who actually have all the answers , may know something. but that would mean the guys on this site with the cool photos, are not well informed. But they seem so 100% sure......
read the book I mentioned and then tell me what you think bout god, after being briefed properly on Him. Then heed the sermon on the mount and you will believe there is a staff in David and a rod in Jesse. Read about your everlasting eternal beautiful souls.
and forgive my spelling etc.
thank you
steelpulsefanatgmaildotcom
This you consider a chink in our armour? You have a great deal to learn about debating. You made a series of poorly-fitting, vague, badly-spelled and difficult-to-read knowledge claims. These knowledge claims are entirely unbacked. On what basis should we believe you?
If logic ever was "your rock" you have long since forgotten how to employ it. This is a fallacy of non sequitur. Keep this up. You are entertaining. There is no logical connection between your assertions.
You learned this? On what basis can you make such colossal epistemological, metaphysical and epistemological claims pertaining to these vague entities about which you can know nothing?
Where is the evidence for this assertion?
This is another fallacy of non sequitur. There is no logical connection between your assertions. You are being clownish. You act ridiculously.
This is a very dubious assertion. Based on our knowledge of Cosmology, there are approximately 10^10 galaxies in the known universe, containing in these 10^20 planets. Of these, we have investigated 10. Once again, you've made a fallacy, in this case an inductive generalization fallacy.
Why? This seems like a personal incredulity fallacy.
A great deal of things. However, this does not constitute a justificatory basis for making metaphysical assertions about the nature of reality. This is an ad ignorantium fallacy combined with an argument from personal incredulity.
This sentence is little better than meaningless gibberish. Small wonder that most people have declined to respond to you. If you can't take the time to write a coherent, meaningful post, what do you think this says about you? I'll tell you: It tells us that you are a lazy idiot. Learn to write.
Once again, this rambling nonsense is filled with non sequiturs, disjointed assertions with no logical link. You start talking about this fellow named Cayce, then you end up talking about why we are here, then you end up with an offhand comment about hyperdimensionality. This post is wholly meaningless.
The 4th dimension is time. This dimension is usually represented in Einsteinian mechanics as a 4D extension of the Pythagorian plane, hence, for some 4 dimensions x, y, z and t, where the first three are spatial, the latter is temporal, the latter must be extended from the normal plane in an imaginary axis denoted by i, normally, in number theory, such that:
For some vector along x, y, z and t, the square of the length of the vector(h^2) is: x^2+y^2+z^2+(ict)^2
or rather, since i^2 is -1:
x^2+y^2+z^2-ct^2
On what basis do you make this assertion, and how can you reconcile this assertion with the contradiction which follows?:
So, you assert that truth is relative, and then you assert that you have found an absolute truth petaining to the nature of reality. Added to that, this is a naked assertion indicating you have wholly relinquished your critical thinking skills. You have shot yourself in the foot.
This is an ad hoc fallacy and begging the question. You are attempting to answer the lack of evidence for your proposition by appealling to concepts contained precisely within the proposition itself. You have no rational basis for any of your assertions. You are a joke.
I think you are the one with some blanks needing filled. Start with formal and informal logic, then argumentative theory and critical thinking. Pay special attention to fallacies of irrelevance and probabilistic fallacies.
Once again, you are linking together two logically seperate assertions without any justificatory basis for why these concepts have any meaningful relation. You make an assertion as to why they are related, but this assertion in turn requires you to presuppose the very doctrine you are attempting to prove. Hence you beg the question. It seems with every line your post grows more ridiculous and laughable. You are comedy material.
The remainder of your post demonstrates this. Once again, in order to attempt to demonstrate a certain proposition to us, your presume its truth. This is not proof. This is fallacy.
No. Thank you. It's been a while since I was so entertained. The deciphering part was irritating, but apart from that, it was fun, in a twisted sort of way.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
I simply wish to place on the record that the poster who calls himself Norman is no relation of mine. I make this statement in the full knowledge that my "photo" depicts me also as a person who seems, as he says, to be 100% secure in his knowledge (albeit a knowledge restricted to imbibing huge quantities of mead, raping, pillaging and sacking monasteries). However nothing could be further from the truth. I am terribly insecure, for example, in the area of the rules of baseball.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Ya, thats it... Im going with that one
What Would Kharn Do?
Why cant you people just believe in a god, Its not that hard. And I do agree that you have no evidence suggesting there is no god. So why try to get us to believe in what you believe when you also have no way in knowing if there is or is not a god.
Why cant you people just believe in a god, Its not that hard. And I do agree that you have no evidence suggesting there is no god. So why try to get us to believe in what you believe when you also have no way in knowing if there is or is not a god.
I won't quibble with the rest of the heavy-duty science you present, but your math is off.
25,900/12 = 2,158.3333....
Good luck with the Edgar Cayce thing. I hope that works out for you.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Man, I wondered what the hell happened to my hamsters. Darn that unseen extrasensoric perceptive little gnome!
Vermont aside, I can't eat my pancakes anymore without the maple syrup they used to excrete.
It's not that hard? To believe in something for which there is absolutely no evidence? Personally that, to me, would be the hardest thing in the world since it would mean denying my intelligence. Why should I do that just so you can live in wilful ignorance and not feel challenged for making such a stupid choice? And by the way, do you actually know what the word "gullible" means?
Your last question - the one where you seem to think we have a faith system being atheists (ha ha) - just shows how little down the road of rational reasoning your brain has been allowed travel. Think about it. For as long as it takes. And don't ask any more silly questions while you're at it.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Hi, Alissa,
Those are perfectly fair questions.
I've tried to believe in a God. I can't. It's actually harder than it looks, if you don't believe to begin with. It's not just a switch you can turn on.
I can't speak for all atheists, naturally, but I'd like to see people think logically, clearly, and intelligently. That's it, really. Mostly, it's because that's the kind of person I like to talk to -- intelligent, thoughtful, articulate people. It isn't so much that I think they should not believe in God -- it's that I don't want their belief in God to interfere with their critical thinking, or their ability to be open-minded.
Belief in Christianity, for instance, has hindered fairness in the world. Take gay marriage, for example. There's no logical reason homosexual couples shouldn't be able to marry and receive the same benefits as heterosexual couples. It's blatantly unfair. I like to live in a fair world, because I too would like to be treated fairly.
Then there's science, in which a belief in Christianity has created a political group designed to interfere with proper understanding of science. This has led to a political battle concerning the teaching of evolution in public schools.
Also, there's 9/11, in which the religious beliefs of a small group of people resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. Simple religious belief can be harmful, not just to me, but to society as a whole. So it is important that people realize how their own beliefs affect other people.
That's it. I'm not really trying to get you to stop being a Christian. I just ask that you understand why I don't believe in God (I can't), and how your actions dictated by your beliefs may be unfair or even harmful to other people.
Please stick around, and join in the debate around here. It's always fun, as long as you don't take anything personally.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Can you say "The burden of proof is always on the positive claim?" I knew you could. It is always reasonable to assume something does not exist if there is no evidence for its existance.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Nigel, you are obviously a gentleman.
I'm not - the questions posed there are neither fair nor intelligent. They exhibit an unbelievable arrogance and ignorance. The person who phrased them may not be aware of it but they essentially sum up the incredibly dismissive attitude towards rational thought that religion encourages its subscribers to adopt. What they essentially ask is "Why can't you just shut up and let the rest of us enjoy our stupidity without being told we are stupid? Why can't you atheists just stop explaining the benefits of rationality in case enough people are convinced and we can't carry on with our prejudice? It's not too hard to be dumb like us, why don't you just join us and stop all that intelligence! Just stop it, will you?"
The ignorance is in thinking that these are reasonable questions. The arrogance is in thinking that one person's superstition should match or exceed another person's rationale. This is a person in serious trouble mentally. Your conciliatory tone might indeed be a better way to tackle such stupidity than mine. But please, draw the line before you call such stupidity "fair". Even in their addled state of mind they should have enough perspicacity to see through that one! After all, "fair" was something they most definitely were NOT trying to be.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
I know. I added that at the last minute, mostly to see if I could get her to engage in conversation, and to be polite. And, from her standpoint, they are fair. Until you know the answer to a question, it's a fair question.
Basically, I'm making the assumption that she just doesn't know better. She looks pretty young in her avatar. (She looks like she's no older than my daughter, who is 20, and is unfortunately a "born-again" Christian. She was raised that way. But at least she knows better than to ask me to just believe in God.) So I reckoned that Alissa just hasn't been exposed to contrary viewpoints.
I guess I just approach the first-timers as ignorant, rather than stupid.
I'm probably just rationalizing, though. There is a such thing as being too polite.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Well, it actually is.I believed in a god.Yawweh to be exact.I never doubted it.But when you do doubt, when you stop believing, when you learn..then it is impossible to believe.You see, I've learnt so much about gods and religion. I could never believe again, because I know I would be lying to myself.There is simply no evidence.That means simply no need to believe. I could no more believe in a god than I could cancel gravity.
I don't understand this.You've used a double negative which basically says: I agree you have evidence suggesting there is a god? I'm sure we didn't say that.
Ok, this is known as the argument from ignorance.
Argument from ignorance
Premises: Atheism is not a logical position to hold, because to say you know there is no god, you would have to be all-present and knowing. You would have to be god.
Problem: There are several flaws here. Firstly, not many atheists will claim to know beyond a doubt there is no god. It is impossible to prove a negative. They have no belief in one.
Secondly, it is just as impossible for a theist to prove there is a god without ultimate knowledge. More so, since the burden of proof rests with them.
Thirdly, by this reasoning, every god and imaginary creature ever created must exist, since you can’t prove it false. This means yahweh is not the only god, and christianity is negated.
You have to ask yourself the same thing.Why do theists want us to believe what they do when they have no evidence there is a god?
Hope to see you around again.Always plenty more to say
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
I think I screwed up the conversation possibility - sorry about that, Nigel. But between the pair of us (if she bothers reading answers to her rhetorical questions, that is) maybe she has something to chew on now that she probably wasn't expecting and might even question her own lack of rationale in asking what she did. But I wouldn't hold my breath.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
I'd like to weigh in here. Nordmann, I don't remember where you live.Is it a atheistic country? You don't seem to have experience with talking to christians.
You see, I was a christian.And like all christians, I knew I was right.I had never really talked to an atheist or thought about what they thought.If I did, I would asked the exact same stupid things we get here 10 times a week. Not because I was trying to be stupid, I genuinely has NO idea what atheists were like.I just thought they must be bad people.
And that's what christians think.That we are bad,different,scary. That's why i make every effort to be polite and friendly here.If you launch into a triade, they will leave, never come back, and never re-consider their opinion of atheists. I think just being a good,polite person can do wonders for our PR.
That's my two cents anyway.
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
Nothing to apologize for, my friend. Your approach is yours, and mine is mine, and they aren't necessarily exactly the same, but that's what makes us different people.
I'm certainly not holding my breath, either. She's long gone, I imagine, and not because of anything any of us could have written. This whole website just reeks of Satan. I suspect she couldn't resist throwing her Jesus-bomb, but didn't have the cajones to stick around to see if it blew up in righteous glory, or if it just fizzled out.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Oddly,she only said a god, and didn't even capitalise it,so I'm not sure she was a christian.
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
It's a pretty good guess. But you are right, I'm making an unfounded assumption.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Believe me, Loc, I have plenty of experience speaking to christians. Nowadays I live in Norway (not as atheistic a society as you might imagine) but that's just now. I grew up in a society steeped in catholicism and have lived in others, including the USA, where I have been in daily confrontation with fundamentalist superstitions parading as belief systems. It has got me deported from one country, villified and ostracised in the USA, and very nearly killed on at least two occasions.
But one thing I have learnt - never ever ever ever ever EVER miss an opportunity to demonstrate that you have sussed the one thing that unites all these "holy" people - their arrogant disregard for intelligence. It is a cancer that afflicts human society in almost all its manifestations and the one thing that can cure it is for the individuals who aid its spread to be at least made to realise that this malignancy applies to them. If and when you can get them to entertain the possibility that they might be guilty of behaving in an anti-intelligent manner then, in my experience, there is a slim possibility that they might free themselves of their delusions completely. Polite banter that tries to tackle their prejudices in a reasonable manner just doesn't cut it. Prick the bubble of complacency which buffers them from reality and then (and only then, in my experience) can a true dialogue begin.
But it's the same as with any addiction to a mind altering substance. The impulse has to come from them first.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Wow!
Those sound like some great stories. Have you written them down somewhere where I might read them? If not, how do you feel about sharing them?
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
*Bangs head on desk*
That is exactly the same ad ignorantium fallacy, just in reverse!
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
All that you and I have is our thinking.
ARE YOU GUYS SERIOUS. YOU CALL YOURSELVES "RATIONAL THINKERS"! IF YOU ONLY FIND COMFORT IN KNOWING WHAT YOU CAN ONLY SEE IS TRUE. THEN TAKE THE TIME TO EDUCATE YOURSELVES. AND READ YOUR SCIENCE BOOKS, THAT YOU HAVE TRIED TO USE FOR YOUR SORRY CASES. DOES YOUR SCIENCE BOOKS STATE THAT...WOW THERE REALLY WAS A FLOOD DURING THE TIME OF CHRIST. WELL THAT'S NOT IMAGINARY IS IS. OR MAYBE THE SCIENCE BOOKS ARE LYING TO YOU, AND THERE IS A BIG CONSPIRICY GOIN ON. ALERT THE PRESS. LOOK INTO YOUR SCIENCE BOOKS AND NOT EVEN THAT CAN PROVE THERE IS NO GOD. NOT EVEN YOUR SCIENCE BOOK CAN NOT DEBUNK THE EVENTS THAT THE BIBLE STATED HAPPENED
LOOK IN YOUR PRESCIOUS SCIENCE BOOKS AND SEE IF THAT WILL GIVE YOU PEACE IN YOUR MEANINGLESS EXISTENCE. AND MAYBE YOU CAN FIND SOME MORE CONSPIRICY THEORIES
I CAN TYPE IN ALL CAPITOL LETTER AS WELL! ISN'T THAT AWESOME!? READ WHAT I'VE WRITTEN BECAUSE IT'S IN A LARGER FORMAT I CAN ALSO FORGO THE USE OF PUNCTUATION UNFORTUNATELY I CAN SPELL AND WRITE COHERENTLY AND DON'T SEEM TO BE ABLE TO DO OTHERWISE EVEN WHEN I TRY REALLY HARD. YOU COULD REALLY LEARN SOMETHING BY READING THIS!
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
And when you quote Sapient saying "he wont stop", you get this moronic vision of a Hitler style government squashing all dissent. Our goal is the same as yours. You have the same ideas we do, "if only people would get on my playbook" so we are no different, WITH THIS EXCEPTION.
The atheists on this board are not delusional or drunk on a utopian goal. When we say "we wont stop" it merely means that we are going to put the word out, some will look at it, some wont, but in no way are any of us out to commit government war on religion, much less genocide or blow ourselves up on April Fools day(our offical holiday) for some delusional alpha male capture the flag mentality that theists seem to have.
So take your fascist attitude of us and lose it. We are simply using the same free speech you have the right to, to show people the absurdity of magical claims.
So yes, we do want to see the end of religion, but not through same genocidal epic final battle that fans of the abrahamic gods seem to want to inflict on each other through government and law.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
My font is bigger therefore I am righter
lol
I call this the fallacy of all caps.
[edit]or an appeal to emotions
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
This is so true! Other then reason what possible reason do you have for not believing in God? I bet you that you have no reasons other the reason. That proves that your irrational! Can you prove that God doesn't exists? Anything that can't be proven not to exist must exist. How do you explain how I god a shiny new train for Christmass if there wasn't any Santa Clause? You can't, can you. So there!
Who is this masked man?
Eden had a 25% murder rate and incest was rampant.
Hmmm .....
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy